Belarusians protest vote on lifting of 2-term limit

Malgorzata Wozniacka, Chronicle Foreign Service

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Photo: SERGEI GRITS

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Opposition activists shout "Long live Belarus!" while protesting the nationwide referendum preliminary results in a square near the presidential administration, Minsk, Monday, Oct 18, 2004. Central Elections Commission said Monday a preliminary tally of ballots from Sunday's election showed more than 77 percent of registered voters approved a change in the constitution that will allow President Alexander Lukashenko to run for a third term. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits) less

2004-10-19 04:00:00 PDT Minsk, Belarus -- Thousands of people took to the streets Monday to protest Sunday's referendum allowing authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to remain in power.

The Central Election Commission said 77 percent of voters supported the referendum scrapping a two-term limit on presidents. Lukashenko, who has led the nation since 1994, will now be allowed to run again in 2006.

"The national referendum has been a proof of free will of our people," he said at a meeting with international observers Monday.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Belarusian people were kept from freely and fairly expressing their will. "Electoral misconduct continued throughout the voting and vote-tabulation process," he said.

Opposition leaders called the vote fraudulent, pointing to government documents they obtained last week addressed to election commissions, which they say detailed how many voters would support the referendum. The results announced Sunday closely matched those instructions, they said.

According to two independent polls conducted last month by Gallup/Baltic Surveys in Lithuania and the Yuri Levada Analytical Center in Russia, Lukashenko's bid to remove term limits was supported by only 37 percent and 39 percent of voters, respectively.

Government critics also said opposition candidates received little air time on state television, and election observers were harassed or arrested. The authorities also reportedly turned off electricity at opposition campaign headquarters and shut down nine independent newspapers in the days prior to the election.

Belarus, a Kansas-size country of 10.5 million inhabitants, gained independence in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But observers say the nation has since rolled back into its Soviet past -- thanks to Lukashenko, the former director of a collective farm, who came to power after Belarus' first democratic presidential elections.

During his 10-year rule, Lukashenko, who has been called "The European Castro," disbanded parliament, rigged elections and closed civil organizations. His political opponents sometimes mysteriously disappeared, only later to be found dead.

Lukashenko also has cultivated close ties with Russia by demoting Belarusian to second-language status in favor of Russian. Russia's Foreign Ministry put its stamp of approval on Sunday's referendum, saying it reflected the will of the people and had proceeded "in a calm and transparent way."

Despite the president's history of political repression, opposition to Lukashenko continues to grow.

Opposition parties are now united into an alliance called the Five+ Coalition. And Lukashenko quipped on state television that so many opposition candidates ran in Sunday's election, they could have filled a second parliament.

Parliamentary elections for the largely powerless 110-seat House of Representatives were held alongside the referendum. But more than half of all opposition candidates deemed most likely to win were not registered by election commissions or were dropped from the candidate list the day before the election.

The referendum was seen as a critical test for Belarus to either move closer to the West or risk further alienation. The European Union and the United States had warned that a "yes" vote could push the country even further from the democratic standards of its European neighbors.

"We regret that Belarus missed an opportunity to take a step closer to the European family, where it belongs," said Tingsgaard.